Hui | June 29, 2009

I would agree that the portrait was probably done by one of Henri’s students. The likeliness is so good that either the painter had the access to the model or he had to make a copy out of an original one. But the differernt poses in two paintings suggest that latter is unlikely. Willie was not a professional model, and probably only some of Henri’s students could have access and interest to paint someone who would not be able to afford a portraiture.

Starting from 1902, Robert Henri began to teach at New York School of Art. A bunch of artists went to his studio. Considering that so many of his pupils became well-known, it is worth investigating to know the possible painter of this Wilie Gee portrait. To my surprise, the painting did not sell (based on the preliminary sale results). Maybe the quest for the identifying the real painter of this Willie Gee may keep going.

Category: Art, Artist, Auction | No Comments »
Tags: Neal Auction, Robert Henri, Willie Gee

Hui | June 27, 2009

On Saturday night at the reception party of Yinka Shonibare MBE’s exhibition, if someone accidentally walked into the the new Cantor Auditorium of the Brooklyn Museum when the artists arrived, he may have thought he just stumbled upon a play. Yinka stepped onto the stage with the help of two Victorian addressed ladies. Both dressed [...]

Category: Art, Artist, Museum | 1 Comment »
Tags: Brooklyn Museum, Yinka Shonibare

Geo | June 26, 2009

Nestled between yuppie Park Slope and Crown Heights, a neighborhood with large numbers of both Orthodox Jews and West Africans, the Brooklyn Museum was the setting for the opening of a show that in unique and purposeful ways brought together African and European cultures. Curiously the work also brings cultural clashes that occurred in colonial [...]

Category: Art, Artist, Museum | No Comments »
Tags: Brooklyn Museum, Madonna, Yinka Shonibare

Hui | June 25, 2009

This morning I was complaining about the release date of the new book “A History of American Tonalism,1880-1920″ by David Cleveland, which was pushed to November from May, then I spotted a unique book about Barbizon school from the Brooklyn Museum Gift Shop in the afternoon. What a coincidence! It was in the special discount [...]

Category: Art, Artist | No Comments »
Tags: American Barbizon School, Brooklyn Museum, Jean-François Millet, tonalism

Geo | June 25, 2009

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House is for sale. Heavily damaged by the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and labled “most endangered” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the house was the last and largest of four homes that Wright designed in an experimental “textile block” style. It was used in a number of films including the [...]

Category: Architecture | No Comments »
Tags: Frank Lloyd Wright, House on a Haunted Hill, Vincent Price

Geo | June 25, 2009

Like most regions in the American Colonies, Delaware had its own cabinetmakers. Today several museums in the state display examples of furniture produced in Delaware and occasionally new pieces surface at antique shows.
Gary Manlove, owner of Manlove’s Choice Antiques in Greenwood, Delaware has spent time in local museums studying Delaware cabinetmakers and even had the [...]

Category: Antiques, Museum | No Comments »
Tags: All Saints’ Antiques Show, Biggs Museum, Delaware Art Museum, Duck Creek, Gary Manlove, James McDowell, John JanVier, Reed House, Thomas Stevenson

Hui | June 23, 2009

Those stories of Antiques Roadshow have never happened to me. The internet has a tremendous power of democratizing information, regardless high-end or bargins for the masses. But the journey of antiquing does not lose its charm from the booming internet platforms or social networking tools. There are just something special about riding in the car on the country [...]

Category: Antiques, Collecting | 1 Comment »
Tags: Churchtown Antiques, dower chest, Pook and Pook

Geo | June 22, 2009

One of the favorite stories of the art circles of Philadelphia concerns Philadelphia’s favorite artist, Thomas Eakins, and his being removed from his position at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for removing the loin cloth of a male model in a mixed class.

Even in Philadelphia, Eakins was not the first artist to go to battle over the cloths that hide parts of the human anatomy. An aging Charles Wilson Peale became the city’s first public nude model after several skirmishes and the inability to find a model.

Category: Art, Artist, Museum | No Comments »
Tags: Charles Wilson Peale, PaFA, Robert Edge Pine, Thomas Eakins

Hui | June 21, 2009

Although most of the Hudson River school artists were associated with Hudson River Valley and its surrounding areas and won their fame in New York city, the current exhibition — Public Treasures/Private Visions: Hudson River School Masterworks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Private Collections at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) [...]

Category: Art, Museum | No Comments »
Tags: Frank Furness, Hudson River School, PaFA, Philadelphia, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Thomas Cole

Hui | June 21, 2009

Five years ago, when I first met Geo on the night before Father’s day, I could not tell the difference between a sideboard and a side table, nor could I spell Queen Ann correctly. Born in China where during the Cultural Revolution anything  old was regarded reactionary. Later in the 80’s and early 90’s when homes [...]

Category: Antiques, Collecting | 2 Comments »
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